Anthony Mulligan Awarded the 2017 Leo B. Hart Humanitarian Award from the University of Arizona

Nov03

11/3/16

The Leo B. Hart Humanitarian Award is given for outstanding contributions to social justice and welfare.

The award is named after the late Leo Brown Hart, a UA alumnus who recognized the plight of children who had migrated west during the Great Depression. Immortalized in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, these children were ostracized as “dumb Okies” and turned away from California schools … until Hart stepped forward. He and 50 migrant children built their own school — referred to as the School at Weedpatch Camp — in a nearby field. Hart then recruited teachers who shared his concern for outcast children. Together, they turned the school from a place for outcasts into an overwhelming success. Many children went on to become judges, professors, and business persons.